Size Matters: The Structural Effect of Social Context

Siwei Cheng, University of Michigan
Yu Xie, University of Michigan

For more than five decades since the work of Simmel (1955), many social science researchers have paid close attention to the effect of social context (e.g. relative group size, heterogeneity, and cultural context) on such social interactions as those measured by inter-racial friendship, dating and marriage. This study explores the effect of total community size on the realized proportion of inter-racial dyads, a subject that has not been fully studied in the existing literature. Based on a theoretical model with multidimensional individual preferences, we posit that net of group composition, the total community size of a social context reduces the proportion of inter-racial dyads among all realized dyads. Using data from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we model and simulate the process of friend-making by school size. Preliminary results are consistent with our hypothesis.